Black Magic
by Writing in Wonderland
Summary: Mutants have only recently been discovered by mankind. So when Wanda and Pietro discover their mutant powers, their lives are changed forever. Now, as debate rages throughout the world, they must decide where they stand. This is an AU story that takes inspiration from many X-men adaptations.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

God, summer couldn't come soon enough. As Wanda trudged through the hallway, dodging people left and right, she tried to think optimistically. After all, she reasoned, it was time for her favorite class of the day: World Literature. It had been a tough day, with a presentation in AP European History and a pop quiz in advanced Geometry. But now she could (hopefully) relax with a group discussion on _Wide Sargasso Sea_. It was the tail end of May, so all everyone's AP tests were over with, meaning that those classes were just about preparing their final projects/essays. As she sat down at her book group's table and shuffled her bag around for her book, Wanda smiled, glad that after her favorite class, she'd be free.

Her group consisted of four other students: Kelly, Amy, Liam and Neil. Out of all of them, she was the only one to have read _Jane Eyre_ , which _Wide Sargasso Sea_ was a prequel to.

"So what'd you guys think of the last night's chapter?" Liam asked.

Wanda kept silent, not wanting to be the one to open the conversation.

"Well…I thought it was kind of interesting how Rochester's opinion of Antoinette keeps deteriorating, even though he's the one making her so miserable and desperate," Kelly brought up.

 _There's a good place to start,_ thought Wanda. "Yeah, especially when it comes to their relationship with sex. At first they both enjoy it, but as Rochester grows more paranoid and hateful, his attitude about how Antoinette enjoys sex too becomes much more negative," she replied.

"Could you explain that a bit more?" Kelly asked.

"This takes place during the Victoria Era, right? That was a time during which Queen Victoria of England was seen as strictly virginal, and the women of Britain were forced to follow suit by acting as if they hated sex. So when Antoinette openly enjoys it, Rochester thinks she's a freak."

"Plus," added Liam, "that enjoyment of sex reminds Rochester of how Antoinette isn't British, strictly speaking, she's Creole. His disgust about this is another part of his ethnocentrism."

"Well, I don't know why he hates that so much," Neil said, "Reading about Antoinette makes me feel pretty damn gypped."

"You really shouldn't say that," Wanda muttered.

"Why not?" Neil asked with a sharp edge to his tone.

"Well, for one thing, gypped means cheated, which implies that you feel that you're entitled to sex, which no one is, and that's a pretty sexist idea too. Society teaches men that women are there for their consumption, which we're not," Wanda explained, her voice getting stronger as she went on, "Plus, gypped is a very offensive word. It's derived from gypsy, which enforces the stereotype that all Romani people are thieves and cheats."

"Jesus, people need to calm down with all this PC shit."

Before Wanda could reply, Amy cut in. "It's just a word, it's not like it hurts anyone."

"Actually, it hurts all of the Romani, including me. It plays into the heavy persecution and discrimination that all of us face, even here in the U.S." Wanda pointed out angrily.

"Wait, you're a Gypsy?" Liam asked.

It was no big secret that Wanda and her twin Pietro were adopted, yet not many people other than their friends knew that they were Romani. She and her brother both had brown skin, but most people assumed they were Middle Eastern.

"I'm Romani. Gypsy is actually an outdated term. People started to use it because they thought the Romani were from Egypt, but we're actually from northern India. Besides, the word gypsy has some bad connotations to it, so we prefer Romani or Roma," Wanda tried to explain patiently.

Neil rolled his eyes. "Well I guess that explains why your skin looks like someone rubbed shit all over it."

* * *

"He said WHAT?!" Pietro yelled.

"I know, and then Ms. Johnson started outlining our essays but I swear I came so close to decapitating him," Wanda said jokingly, trying to calm her brother down, "I just tried to ignore him the rest of class."

The twins were walking through the woods, which made a nice short cut right to their backyard. It had plenty of trails and some truly beautiful sights, making it a nice way to end the school day (at least in the spring).

"Seriously though, if I ever see that fuckwad outside of school, I'm kicking his ass" Pietro fumed.

"Pietro," Wanda said, grabbing his arm, "I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself. You can't keep fighting all of my battles for me."

"Oh yeah? Name one time I've fought your battle for you," Pietro scoffed.

"How about that time Mark Kingston kept stealing my math homework and you ripped up his vintage baseball cards? Or that time when Shelby Woods spread a rumor that I worshipped the devil and you threatened to tell her minister and parents that she smokes pot if she didn't admit that she made it up?" Wanda teased.

"Oh, er-yeah. But I'm just looking out for my little sis" Pietro insisted with a smile.

Wanda sighed exaggeratedly. "For the last time, we're twins. Beings born seven minutes before me doesn't make you older than me. At least, not in any way that matters."

Pietro just laughed, saying, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much. But other than that, how was the rest of your afternoon?"

"It was okay, I felt pretty good on my geometry quiz and chorus was really fun. Oh and guess who got the solo for "No One is Alone"? She said.

All it took for Pietro was one look at his sister's face and he started to jumped up and down excitedly with his hands on her shoulders.

"Oh my god! Oh my god! It's about fucking time! I was sick of you always finding excuses to not audition!"

"Yeah, well, those days might be over. So how was your day?"

"Eh, it was average. Soccer practice was tough, our coach is getting really worried about our final win to loss ratio. He wants us to have won a majority of games this season, but there are only two games left and we'll need to win both to do that."

"Well, I'm sure you'll do great, and besides, there's always next-"

But at that moment, something hit the back of Wanda's head. She turned confusedly, only to see Neil bike past her. She looked down, trying to find what hit her when her eyes landed on a crushed can of soda. When she looked back up, Pietro was running towards Neil, but was having trouble catching up. As Neil turned down the right fork of the path, he looked over his shoulder and yelled, "Slutty Gypsy bitch!"

Each of those words hit her. She could feel the impact of each of them, sure that they would end up leaving bruises. The hurt left her dazed more than anything else for a few slow seconds, but the anger came soon enough. It rose up slowly at first, building its momentum until it came down with a crash. And when it did, Wanda felt as though the anger, along with the rest of her tumbling emotions were being ripped from her. She thought she saw a red wave of-well, of something-radiate from her, causing all the plant life within three yards to explode and then disintegrate. But she was having trouble believing anything she saw at the moment, for when she collapsed exhaustedly onto the dirt path, she could of sworn she saw her brother speed over impossibly fast, pick her up, the trees blurred as he carried her home.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

When Wanda awoke, she found herself tangled in her bed sheets, her silver comforter practically suffocating her. As she pushed it off of her, she noticed Pietro dozing in her dark red beanbag chair. When she attempted to stand and stretch, she promptly fell onto the floor, exhaustion having hollowed out her bones. Pietro woke at the sound and gently helped her back into her bed.

"What happened?" Wanda asked in a small voice. As Pietro tried to gather his words, she felt fear creep up on her, scared to think that she had hallucinated everything, but even more scared to think that it actually happened.

"I don't really know. I was trying to chase after that shithead, but when he called you that, I turned around. It looked almost like something red and glowing came from you, and it just destroyed all the plants nearby. When you collapsed, I ran over to you, but I ran way too fast. It was the same when I ran us home, it took, like, less than a minute. After that, I just put you in your bed and fell asleep."

Wanda pondered this for a minute, trying to come up with any sort of reasonable explanation: there was a flash fire, Pietro just got an adrenaline rush, someone secretly slipped them some acid. But eventually, Wanda realized that there was truly only one explanation.

"We're mutants, aren't we?"

Pietro just sat there, shocked at the statement. The world at large had only begun to become aware of mutants that November, and there was still very little known about them. Despite this, or maybe because of it, a Mutant Registration Act was already being talked about and accusations of secretly being a mutant were being thrown at nearly every public figure. There were even some rumors that mutants were being attacked all over the country, but no one seemed to talk about that a lot, Wanda noted wryly. Being mutant wasn't just a state of being, it was a state of fear.

"We can't let anyone know," Pietro said suddenly, coming out of his reverie, "At least not until we've got it under control."

"Under control?"

"If we just ignore it, we'll just have the same sort of accidents. We need to learn how to use it, so that we control it, instead of it controlling us" he explained.

"Okay…" Wanda agreed cautiously, "But are you sure we can't even tell Mom and Dad?"

"No," Pietro sighed, "you know how they can be. It's not like they're exactly great at helping us with our problems."

Wanda nodded, acknowledging the truth of his point. The Joneses adopted them when they were already eight years old, soon after their mother died. Those circumstances made things…difficult, to say the least. In fact, the Maximoff twins called them Mom and Dad out of sense of politeness and obligation more than anything else.

"So, I'm thinking tonight after dinner we go back into the woods to try to figure this out. That sound okay?" Pietro asked concernedly.

Wanda nodded, lost in thought, and Pietro smiled gently, ruffled her hair and started walking to the door.

"By the way," he said right before he left, "you might want to eat something," nodding to her bedside table, where there was a glass of water and some apple slices waiting for her.

Once she had eaten and gotten some of her strength back, Wanda stood up and went to the full-length mirror attached to her closet door. Even after all that had happened, she still couldn't get Neil's words out of her head. She'd worn a dark purple tank top and dark skinny jeans to school, along with her black combat boots. Plus, on her way home she had been wearing her red leather jacket, which she noticed Pietro had hung up for her. Wanda didn't think she looked slutty. But her top was kind of tight, and she was a size D, but she still didn't think she looked slutty by any standards. _Not that there's anything wrong that, it's a stupid, sexist label anyway_ , she thought.

Eventually she turned her eyes to the rest of herself. Her skin was smooth and clear, she'd gotten past her acne over a year ago. It was fairly brown too, but she liked it that way. _It certainly doesn't look like shit_ , she thought defensively. As for her hair, it was a far darker brown, while also being thick and a bit wavy. Her eyes were dark green and framed by thick black lashes. Most of the time Wanda was pretty happy with how she looked, especially since she looked so much like her mother. But when someone like Neil came along and said aloud the thoughts that still sometimes crept at the back of her mind, she always began to doubt herself. She knew he was just a bigoted idiot, that she shouldn't let him get to her. But all the logic in the world couldn't just turn off this kind of hurt. But dwelling on it would make her feel worse, as Wanda knew from experience. So instead, she just took out her homework from her bag and started working.

* * *

"So, how was school today?"

They had all sat down to a dinner of steak and green beans about ten minutes ago, eating in silence for about ten minutes until Mrs. Jones decided to start off the compulsory Q&A.

"Well, uh," Pietro began, "school was just average, but soccer practice was sort of tough."

"Coach working you hard?" Mr. Jones asked with a laugh.

"Yeah," Pietro chuckled, "he really wants to end the season strong."

"And how was your day, Wanda?" Mrs. Jones asked.

"A boy said that my skin looked like someone rubbed shit all over it."

The table was quiet for a minute after that.

"That's awful sweetheart!" Mrs. Jones suddenly exclaimed, taking Wanda's hand. Mr. Jones just looked uncomfortable.

"And on the way home, he threw a can at my head and called me a slutty Gypsy bitch" Wanda forced out, her voice cracking.

"That's horrible. You'll just have to ignore him." Mrs. Jones responded.

With that, Wanda tore her hand away. "I can't just ignore him, I have to see him every single day! Can't you call the school or something? They only do something when a parent gets involved."

"Honey, that'd probably only make things worse. He'll stop soon enough if you just ignore him."

"Oh, sure, cause that's worked so well over the years!" Wanda shouted. She was about to go on, but then she noticed Pietro's panicked look and realized what could happen. Instead, she ran to the back door and out into the woods. She just couldn't stand how apathetic the Joneses could be. They adopted her and Pietro because they wanted to have kids, but when it came to helping them with their problems, they never did anything of substance. Wanda could still remember her mother Magda, and how she was always there for them. Back when they lived in Transia, Magda did everything in her power to protect her children. When other kids would refuse to let them join in on their games and bully them because of their heritage, Magda would scold both the children and their parents. When a local vender would shout, "Get those Gypsy kids away from my stall", Magda wouldn't stop until he or she would apologize. And when they moved to the U.S. when the twins were seven, it was no different. Maybe that's why it bothered Wanda so much when her adoptive parents did nothing in these situations: it just reminded Wanda of the mother she lost.

At this thought Wanda finally stopped running and looked around. She had run fairly far, she couldn't even see the edge of woods anymore. Her legs and head ached, so much so that Wanda looked around desperately for one of the benches that dotted the paths in certain spots. To her frustration, there were none nearby and she certainly didn't want to go searching for one. But as she still was thinking wistfully of a place to sit, her hands began to glow red. Ahead of Wanda, at the edge of the path, a similar glow began to manifest and quickly enough, it solidified into a plain wooden bench.

"Holy shit!" Wanda whispered.

"How'd you do that?" A familiar voice asked.

Wanda jumped, afraid of being discovered, only to turn around and see Pietro. He gave her a small smile, unsure of her mood.

"Sorry, I would have gotten here quicker but I had to check a few different paths before I could find you."

"How fast were you going?" Wanda asked absentmindedly, still staring at the bench.

"Pretty fast, I was worried about accidently running into a tree or something, but it's weird, I could see just fine," when Wanda just nodded vaguely, he added, "So, how'd you do that?"

"I'm not sure. I was just thinking about how nice it'd be sit down on a bench and then it just started to manifest."

Cautiously, Wanda started to walk toward the bench. It looked innocent, but who knows? It could easily just be an illusion and not be solid at all. But when she outstretched her hand, it touched solid wood. With a sigh of relief, she promptly plopped down on it, relishing the rest. Right after she did so, Pietro joined her.

"So, your mutant power seems simple enough, you have super speed. But I can apparently explode trees and make benches. What the hell kind of power is that?" Wanda asked confusedly. "Maybe it's the power to create change? It kind of reminds me of _Harry Potter_. Like how before the kids were trained, weird stuff would just happen based on what they were thinking about."

"That makes sense. I guess that's what you should try then." Pietro said, trying to assure her.

"But I wasn't trying to make that bench or kill those trees. So how am I supposed to keep it from happening all the time?"

"You'll just have to practice. I know you can do this Wanda," Pietro replied, putting his arm around her, "And I'll be right here to help you."

Wanda sighed and turned her attention to the bench. Gently, she placed her hands on the wood and imagined the wood turning into gold. She concentrated incredibly hard on the image, to the point where her head began to ache. But to her frustration, nothing happened. _Maybe I should start smaller_ , she thought. So instead, she picked up a small stick from the forest floor, this time trying to make it disintegrate like she did with the trees. She tried to ignore her brother, who by this time had begun speeding around, practicing his turns. Due to her heavy concentration, her face was all scrunched up. _I must look ridiculous_. After a few minutes of enormous effort and no results, she called out to her twin, "I swear, this is impossible. I'm concentrating as much as I can but nothing's happening!"

Pietro slowed to a stop and said, "Well, um-maybe that's the problem? Maybe you're trying too hard. Try just doing what feels instinctual."

Wanda bit her lip and nodded. Once again, her turned her eyes to the stick, but instead of concentrating fiercely as before, she tried to clear her mind. Then she began to search for that energy she had felt inside herself when she demolished those trees and even when, she realized, she had somehow made that bench. Once she went searching for it, she found it easily. It rose up inside her, surging to her hands. The glow, she registered distantly, it was more than that. It moved over her hands, bits of it looking as if it were scarlet arcs of electricity, other spots looking like veins of fire. The overall effect seemed to be a marriage of fog and flame. The same glow had taken hold of the stick and with barely a thought, Wanda caused it lift up off of her palms. She then closed her right hand into a gentle fist, paused a moment and suddenly opened it while twisting her wrist a bit. The stick was ripped apart from its very core, leaving only the smallest pieces of wood dotting the area to suggest what had happened. The glow had disappeared from Wanda's hands, which she now stared at in astonishment.

"Do you know how you did that?" Pietro asked quietly, walking away from his spectator spot and up to her, gently placing his hand on her head.

"I think so," Wanda began, "It's like you said about instinct. Like, when you pick something up from the ground, you don't really need to think about it or concentrate on it. Your body just knows what to do."

Pietro nodded and then asked, "Do you think you could put it back together?"

His sister looked around at the small grains of wood and hesitated. But then she took a deep breath and called upon the force that rested inside of her. Very slowly, each of the grains took up the same glow as before. Wanda started to move her fingers in a sort of delicate, almost swirling gesture and the grains languidly levitated upwards. They subsequently started to gather before her, fitting themselves together like the pieces of a puzzle. When it was repaired, Wanda felt the change she had wrought solidify inside of her and let go.

"You know, when you do that, you're eyes turn red." Pietro mentioned.

"Really?" Wanda asked with a laugh, "Like, my entire eye, whites and all, or just the iris or something?"

"Just the iris, it looks pretty cool actually."

"Well now we both look like freaks," she teased, alluding to her brother's silver hair. "Listen, I'm gonna go back to where I made all of those plants disintegrate and see if I can fix it. I don't want anyone suspecting anything. You should stay here and practice though, I don't want you to get hurt by me doing something large-scale."

"Excuse me?" Pietro scoffed, "I'm not about to let you do that alone! What if you pass out again or something? Besides, I can get us both there much quicker."

"Alright." Wanda relented with a sigh, knowing that fighting him on this would be useless.

With that, Pietro picked up his sister and ran them back to where this chapter of their lives had begun. When he let Wanda down, she surveyed the damage, noting how this part of the woods took the appearance of a dead clearing. She plopped down at the center of it and let the energy rise up in her. The overall process was the same as it was with the stick, only this time it took around twenty minutes. As each minute ticked by, as each branch and leaf reformed, Wanda could feel herself starting to tire. But her mutant energy kept her going until the task was complete. When it was done, Wanda had just enough time and energy to stand up and admire her work before she fainted once more.


End file.
